


Promises

by oOAchilliaOo



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-22
Updated: 2019-11-05
Packaged: 2020-12-28 13:23:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21137399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oOAchilliaOo/pseuds/oOAchilliaOo
Summary: He’d done all the right things. Taken the crown, married the wrong girl, but he’d never ever forgotten the promise he’d made to her, his real love. The promise that one day, when the time came, they’d face the calling together…Now it’s time to fulfil that promise.





	1. Chapter One

Alistair had seen beautiful things before.

On his eighth birthday, Eamon, his eyes unmistakably warm with what he liked to think of as affection, had pulled a carefully wrapped package out from behind his back and presented it to him. Alistair had virtually snatched the parcel from the Arl’s hands and had proceeded to tear the paper to shreds in a mad hurry to lay his hands on the hilt and draw the blade. As he had held his first blade parallel to his eyes, he had marvelled at the craftsmanship of the dragon carved into the hilt, noting the way its eyes glittered. It was the best thing he’d ever seen.

He’d been present in the Grand Cathedral at Denerim for early morning prayers and, while he would never be one of the fervent believer types, he had to concede that the first light of dawn shining through the stained glass windows, creating patterns of colour and light on the Chantry floor, overlaid with the sonorous slow intonation of some of the better verses of the Chant of Light was, in a way, reverently beautiful.

They’d been scouting in the hinterlands, investigating reports of darkspawn sightings and their commander had insisted they climb what was technically a hill, but what felt much more like a mountain, to get a better view of the surrounding area. As he had reached the top, he had noted the valley below; all green fields and small thatched cottages. The river wound its way across the valley floor, impossibly blue and sparkling in the sunlight, and as his gaze had reached even further to the mountains, partially indistinct due to the distance, he had to admit that Ferelden might be cold and wet and muddy but it was also absolutely breathtakingly beautiful.

Yes, Alistair had seen beautiful things before.

But, as she had risen to her feet on shaking, unsteady legs; her hair a matted tangled mess blowing in the breeze behind her; her armour and swords covered in the same grisly combination of dirt, blood and gore as his was; her eyes aflame with the knowledge of their looming victory - he’d had to concede that she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

Quite possibly the most beautiful thing he would ever see.

She’d charged, her shaking legs becoming increasingly stronger and surer as she ran, scooping up a nearby greatsword and plunging it without hesitation into the Archdemon’s neck.

He’d tried to stand on legs shattered by the beast’s tail; he’d tried to call out, to reach for her because what if it hadn’t worked? He didn’t think he could bear it if all her light, her beauty, were to be gone from the world. He’d wanted to take the blow himself, just in case, just to be sure. But he hadn’t been able to and she had and…

She’d survived.

But everything had changed.

It’s odd when he thinks about it. In his forty-eight years of life, his happiest time had been fighting the blight. He’d been young and strong and brave and free in a way he hadn’t been free since… And loved. Loved above all else. Back then he had loved and been loved.

He presses the heels of his hands to his eyes. This was hard, and reminiscing about the past was not helping. He pushes himself out of the ornate mahogany desk chair situated behind the ornate mahogany desk. Despite the years, he’d never really managed to acclimatise himself to luxury and much preferred the simpler plainer affair situated in his chambers, but nobody ever expected him to be in the office and it was thus more private, more secure.

Stalking over to the window, he looks out over the royal gardens. Madeline is there, sat in the centre of her ladies, fiddling with something he can’t quite see. As always, her movements are delicate and precise, her expression poised but warm. Her tiara, the feminine mirror of his own crown, is perfectly nestled among her raven locks.

Every inch the queen, he thinks, a small smile creeping across his face. He has always wondered how much she knows, or guesses, about his true feelings.

He hasn’t loved her for a single day of the past twenty-five years. Not really, not the way she should have been loved. How could he? His heart had been given away long before he met her. But he has loved her as best as he can.

Madeline has never really understood his sense of humour, but she laughs along anyway, and he likes her for that. She’s supported him all these years and managed to teach him how to look and act the part without making him feel unworthy, and he thanks her for that. Most importantly, some would say, she gave him a son - a son whom he loves dearly - and he cares for her for that.

She has been his friend, his companion, his queen and he has liked her, thanked her and, in time, learned to care for her a great deal.

But he has never loved her.

He wonders if she really knows, or if his sense of duty and family are so ingrained and so perfect that they have managed to convince her that he loves her.

He wouldn’t mind too much if they had.

Void take him, whether he loves her or not, whether she knows or not, she doesn’t deserve what he is going to have do to her. Not to mention what he has already done to her. He sighs and stalks back to the desk, throwing himself into the chair, only to be confronted by the blank piece of paper that yet refuses to co-operate.

It occurs to him that the truth might be the best way to go. After all, what would the Wardens do? Reprimand his corpse for spilling their secrets? She would keep the secret anyway; he was sure she would.

Yes, the truth, that would work.

Not the whole truth though.

‘Maddy,’ he writes, mind finally made up.

‘I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you this in person. By the time you read this, I’ll be long gone and… I won’t be coming back.

I told you once that Grey Wardens pay a terrible price to become what we are. The exact nature of the price is considered a Grey Warden secret; thus, I could not tell you before.

But I suppose that doesn’t matter now.

From the time a Grey Warden undertakes the Joining, they have only thirty years to live. After that time, the very thing that makes us wardens slowly kills us, as it is now slowly killing me.

I do not wish for either you or our son to bear witness to what I will become if I allow the taint to kill me. You have helped make me a king, but I think you have always known that in my heart I have remained a Warden.

If I must die, I wish to do so in the manner of my brothers, and, while I do not wish to leave you and the boy, I know I must.

I want you to know that it hurts to leave you both…’

He pauses there, considering. He wants to say more, wants to give her the three oh-so-important words that she so deserves, but he has only ever given those words to one woman, and he doesn’t want the last message to his queen to be a lie.

‘But this is something I have to do.

If I have one wish for you, Maddy, it is for you to be happy. Hold the throne as only you can for our son and guide him as you have guided me, but most of all, Maddy, please, please be happy.

You deserve that much.

May the Maker watch over you both.

Your Husband, 

Alistair.‘

It’s not perfect, but it’s the best he can do without lying to either her or himself. He folds the letter over, sealing it with wax and impressing it with the royal seal. Tucking the letter into his breast pocket, he glances at the sky.

Four hours, he calculates.

In four hours’ time, he will no longer be king.

He doesn’t know how to feel about that. A part of him rejoices, that he will finally lay aside the burden he had never wanted to carry. He will once again be free to express his own thoughts, his own desires without having to consider the political implications beforehand. To remove the ceremonial armour and ornate jewellery and replace both with more serviceable splintmail will be marvellous.

But still…

Over the years this has become his kingdom, his responsibility; its people are his people. He has accepted the Theirin inside him. Embraced it, nurtured it. It is a part of him now, a part he’ll be leaving behind. 

He scrubs his hand over his face and once again hauls himself out of the chair.

Later, he manages to bid his wife and child goodnight without any undue emotion. He tells them that he’ll see them in the morning and that he hopes they’ll sleep well. They don’t seem to realise that only the second part is true.

He sits alone in the royal family’s sitting room, the fire beside him dying down with each passing hour.

And he waits.

The chantry bell eventually tolls the witching hour. The sound finally stirring him, he sets his empty glass aside and stands, taking down the blade that sits over the hearth.

He creeps into his son’s bedchamber and sets Maric’s blade down at the foot of the bed. Upon the hilt he places the signet ring that he has worn since the day of his coronation. These are his son’s things now. He indulges himself in one last lingering look at his child and for a moment is aggrieved that the boy will now need to carry his father’s burden.

The father’s freedom coming at price of the son’s.

He takes the time to ruffle the boy’s hair the way he used to when he was younger and just learning the sword. 

“I love you,” he murmurs, bending over the sleeping figure, then, after a moment. “I’m sorry.”

He can’t stay. He knows this, staying goes against every warrior’s instinct he possesses. So, he turns and steals into the adjoining chamber.

The moonlight slips through the curtains just enough to highlight the figure on the bed. Her tousled hair spills across the pillows, her countenance peaceful as she sleeps the untroubled sleep of those who have never had to see the things that he has seen.

He feels the now familiar warmth in his chest as he gazes at her. It’s not love, but it’s something close.

He takes the letter out of his breast pocket and places it on the empty pillow beside her. Then he brushes a few stray strands of hair out of her face and bends to place a final farewell kiss on her forehead.

“Thank you,” he whispers. 

As he closes her chamber door, he feels... something. The hard part is over and the feeling is both aching loss and the sense of something long forgotten sliding back into place. Comfortable and familiar yet new and unsettling. He shrugs it off for now, he has preparations to make.

Entering his own chamber, he wastes no time in pushing the nearest dresser up against the door. He then proceeds to the other side of the room and, muscles straining, manages to move the heavy oak wardrobe aside. Below the wardrobe, a missing floorboard reveals a ten by twenty-inch hole. It is into this that Alistair reaches. He pulls out five packages, each one carefully wrapped in protective paper; precious items he hasn’t looked at for nearly ten years. Laying them down, he quickly strips out of his finery, revealing the plain shirt and linen breeches he wears underneath.

The first package reveals itself to be a simple set of splintmail. It’s clean and cared for and has obviously been packed away with great care attention, but it’s old, and here and there are a few dents and nicks. He knows each one of those nicks intimately, remembers the corresponding bruises on his skin. In some cases, he still carries the scars. The last time he had donned this armour they had been about to venture into the deep roads. After that, they had travelled back to Ostagar, where the armour he’d worn every day since had been acquired. But it seemed... appropriate to wear this set of armour again now.

As he dons the splintmail he’s surprised to discover two things. Firstly, that it still fits, although on second thought, that shouldn’t be so surprising. He has never once allowed a day to pass without spending at least two hours of it in the practice ring. Secondly, that his fingers remember exactly how to fasten the pieces; right down to the left greave which had always been a little out of shape. It’s comforting after so many years of royal squires undertaking the task for him.

The second package contains the sword he truly thinks of as his. He has carried Maric’s blade for the past thirty years but it has never felt warm or right in his hand. This one does. He pulls the blade from the scabbard, wrenching it slightly as in its old age the blade seems loathe to come loose from its sheathe…

*

She wrenches the blade loose. Somehow her usually fast reactions fail her, and she doesn’t quite manage to turn her head before the sputter of blood hits her fully in the face. Her look of almost childlike indignance and surprise is so at odds with the blood that paints her armour, and her fierce warrior stance, that he cannot help but laugh.

Hearing him, her head snaps to the side to glare at him with narrowed eyes. He tosses her a smile and a roguish wink in response. She laughs at him delightedly and leaps off the Ogre landing before him, her movements as sleek and agile as all her actions are wont to be. She holds out the blade hilt first towards him.

“You should have this,” she says without preamble and he reaches out accepting the blade, but it is some time before he is able to tear his eyes away from her sparkling green ones to truly see it. When he does, he recognises it immediately.

“Is this...”

“Yeah.”

“… Duncan’s?”

“Yeah,” she repeats. “Yours now.”

He doesn’t know what to say. It means so much to him to have something of Duncan’s. That she would bother to wrest it out for him means just as much.

He wants to tell her that she is beautiful, brilliant, brave and kind and so mind-bogglingly wonderful that loving her more than life itself is easier than he ever thought it could be.

What comes out is simply, “thanks.”

She regards him fondly for a moment and he gets the strangest sensation that she somehow knows all the things he wants to say but can’t find the words for.

Actions speak louder than words anyway, and her lips are so tantalisingly close.

“Don’t kiss me.” She presses one hand against his armoured chest and forces him to take a step back, gesturing to her blood-spattered face as a way of explanation. For half a moment he’s tempted to kiss her anyway, but he really has no desire to ingest more darkspawn blood than is strictly necessary.

Instead he cocks his head to the side, considering her; it strikes him odd that he can still find her so breathtakingly beautiful even in such a state, in such a place.

“Have I told you that I love you today?” he asks her instead.

She snorts. “You may have gasped out something to that effect in the throes of passion this morning,” she tells him, smiling up at him, her eyes filled with adoration that he probably doesn’t deserve. “But I’ll hear it again if I must.” She sighs over-dramatically, rolling her eyes in false exasperation.

“I love you,” he says, without hesitation.

She lays her hand against his cheek. “I love you too.”

She moves behind him to look to their companions and he takes a moment to look at the blade, remembering the man who had previously carried it before shaking the memories loose and -

*

Sheathing the blade once more, he slots the scabbard onto his back. It’s not as heavy as Maric’s blade nor as wide, and the sensation of wearing it is at once both loss and gain.

Package three contains a shield. Like every other artefact in this treasure trove it is both well-loved and well-used. The paint has faded with time but the griffon is still just visible in the centre amidst the dents and scrapes that litter the previously smooth surface. The leather binding surrounding the grip is both soft with use and blackened by sweat. As he hefts it on his arm its weight is exactly as he remembers it. Sliding it into the holster on his back he reaches for the next parcel.

Packages four and five tumble out of the paper, a seemingly meaningless bundle of cloth. He digs through the muddle looking for the large rucksack that once held all his worldly possessions. Opening the flap, he checks inside and finds a jumble of healing potions, bandages and the odd book or two. He reaches out to the table beside him, grabbing the parcel of foodstuffs he’d ‘stolen’ from the kitchen earlier and adding it to the jumbled contents. Then, from the pocket of his discarded doublet, he fishes out the small pouch weighted with gold coins and adds that as well.

The old tent is strapped securely to the base of the sack and he takes a few moments to check the straps are secure before grabbing the nearby travelling cloak and draping it over his shoulders.

Satisfied he heaves the wardrobe back into place, effectively covering the hidey hole. He dumps the rucksack onto the bed for the time being, and crosses to the full-length mirror.

The man who stares back at him is a man of two halves. His body, swathed in his old armour without the trappings of any finery, save only for his mother’s amulet that sits above his breast, is that of the young warden he had once been. His face, lined by worry and slightly weathered by age, with long hair falling into his eyes, is that of the king.

He takes hold of the shears on the table beside the mirror. With a few deft movements, the longer locks are no more and he’s back to the more practical, shorter cut he’d sported during the blight.

Now he looks like the man he might have been if he had remained a warden for the past thirty years. The king slips further and further away from him, with each unearthed treasure and every movement of the shears, and he finds that, despite his expectations, he misses it just a little bit.

He throws the hair into the fire; no use allowing the kingsguard to know he’d changed his appearance. He’s sure they will come after him as they often did in his youth, when he was unaccustomed to the crown and sometimes needed to be out on his own with the illusion of freedom. Eamon had always sent them after him and they had always brought him back.

Not this time though.

He turns back to the bed, scooping up the pack and launching himself out of the window, without a second glance. He climbs down the ivy, sneaking into his own royal gardens, ears and eyes alert despite having memorised the guards’ patrolling pattern.

But as he creeps through the rose garden, he pauses. Somehow, throughout all these years she has always remained, in his heart, the beauty amidst the darkness.

*

The darkness here is deep and foul. Even the lights cast by Morrigan and Wynne seem only to make the surrounding shadows that much gloomier. The churning, burning, roiling in his blood is probably making it worse. The knowledge that he will likely one day die down here isn’t helping any either. 

A glance to his side tells him she looks as bad as he feels. A sheen of sweat glistens on her forehead, her eyes frantically scanning the shadows despite the fact that she can’t possibly see anything. Her blades are unsheathed and ready regardless of the fact that any attack was bound to be heralded by a spike in the burning, roiling, churning sensation that had underlain everything since they had arrived in Orzammar.

She steps closer to him.

“We haven’t been attacked in a while,” she murmurs.

“And everyone is pretty tired,” he agrees, predicting her thought patterns easily.

“You think it’s safe?” she asks, turning her gaze towards him instead of the shadows.

He quirks a half smile at her. “What is it about dark tunnels filled with thousands of darkspawn all intent on killing us fails to scream safety to you?”

She snorts, but probably would have graced him with her delightful laughter had they been anywhere else. “You’re right,” she replies, eyes twinkling. “It feels so safe down here we could set up home. We’ll stay here and you can be king over the nice, safe, darkspawn-y subjects.”

“Har har,” he replies with all the sarcasm he can muster, which is to say, lots.

She merely smiles at him and squeezes his hand before turning and ordering the others to stop.

They decide to risk lighting a fire and it doesn’t take long for them to set up a ‘camp’ of sorts. It is Wynne who raises the issue of guard duty and Elissa hesitates for only a minute, meeting his eyes briefly, before announcing the decision they had both just agreed upon in a glance.

“We’ll guard,” she tells the mage. “We won’t sleep anyway, not with the taint.”

Wynne glances at him and he nods in what he hopes in a reassuring manner before turning and seating himself at the edge of ‘camp’. 

She takes the time to help settle their little party, whispering comforting words and passing out rations. It is only when the others are asleep that she flops down next to him.

“I hate this place,” she remarks. Her tone is light hearted, conversational, but he can feel the bitter hatred beneath the statement.

“I know.”

He lifts his arm to place it around her shoulders. She shuffles closer to him, curling into his armoured chest and he desperately wishes that they could risk removing said armour so that he could feel the warmth and weight of her against him.

She is quiet for a moment and he’s not sure how he knows, but he knows that she has something to say and is either trying not to say it or trying to find the words. He tightens his arm around her, drawing her impossibly closer.

“What is it?” he murmurs into her hair, indulging himself and bestowing a kiss upon her forehead.

She doesn’t respond for a moment then sits up so she can look him in the eye. His heart cries out at the loss of her form against his own but finds the alternative of gazing into her eyes a fair substitute.

“Promise me something?” she says, eventually.

“Anything,” is his ready reply, and he means it. There is nothing he would not do for this woman.

“No matter what happens, with the future or the throne or the...” she trails off, gazing into some avenue of the future that he had probably not even thought of but that she had probably planned out in its entirety. “Whatever,” she continues waving whichever future it was away. “When the time comes to... return to this place... will you come with me? Can you promise that no matter what happens we’ll face the end together?” 

Her question is earnest and his heart aches for her because he has never intended anything to the contrary. From the moment he had first informed her of her fate, her wide-eyed horrified expression had struck him so completely that he had sworn right then and there that she would not have to go through it alone.

It occurs to him that perhaps he should’ve told her that.

“I can’t bear the thought of you dying down here alone,” she confesses quietly and his heart soars to hear that her reasons are the same as his own.

He slides his fingers into her auburn hair, an armoured glove cupping her cheek.

“I promise,” he rasps, drawing her to him, his lips meeting hers and before he really realises what he’s doing he’s-

*

\- reaching up to pluck a single rose from nearest bush. He gazes at it for just a moment before wrapping it in a piece of linen bandage and storing it carefully in his pack.

He moves swiftly on, making for the servants’ entrance, knowing that he needs to be well on the way before sunrise, knowing also that nothing can be permitted to halt his progress.

For it is time.

And he has a promise to keep.


	2. Chapter Two

Once, only once, has he lain eyes on her since becoming king. It had all at once felt like the Maker’s greatest blessing and his greatest curse.

Just before the city fades forever from his sight, he turns to take one last look at the sprawling chaotic mess that was once his city, his home. The first rays of dawn creep over the surrounding hill lands and glint off the palace windows.

*

Of course, she’s here, his brain qualifies after the initial shock. Of course, she had been invited. She is an arlessa and Commander of the Grey and he is a king about to be wed. Of course, she had been invited.

Void.

For the first time, he inwardly curses his lack of interest in planning the wedding. But then again, to not invite her would have probably been some big political misstep of some kind. For her to fail to attend was probably the same.

That’s why she’s here, he realises, watching her cross the hall. Because she couldn’t not be.

In five years, she has not changed so very much. He still knows her better than he knows himself, and he can see that, beneath the smiles and the polite somehow nobler way in which she carries herself, she is desperately uncomfortable.

He debates with himself for a moment, wondering if speaking to her would make matters better or worse.

Probably worse.

And what would he even say?

‘Hey, remember me? We spent a year fighting and sleeping together. Then you gave me a crown and I left you and hey, meet the woman I’m about to marry instead!’

‘… oh, but by the way, I still totally love you.’

Yeah.

No.

It is then by virtue of a carefully choreographed dance that he always keeps himself and his betrothed on the opposite side of the hall to her. He gets the sense that her movements are aligned to the same goal. Both of them working together to keep themselves apart and he wants to laugh because somehow, it’s hilarious that they should still work so well together.

He is always aware of her position relative to his own, attuned to her even without the help of the tingling sensation of her taint in his blood.

Instead, he tries to concentrate on the woman beside him. Madeline, he qualifies silently to himself. She is fairly pretty and she is fairly kind and he tries, he really does, to look at Madeline and see Madeline. He tries to see curly raven locks instead of wavy vibrantly auburn ones, to see bright blue eyes instead of sparkling green and he tries, he really does, not to compare Madeline’s kindness to Elissa’s strength. But it is hopeless.

Madeline is pretty and kind.

But she is not Elissa, and cannot possibly compare.

He realises then that, despite his efforts, despite his hopes, he will never truly love his wife. The thought crushes his heart more than the prospect of the crown.

Ultimately, after what feels like an eternity of torment, Madeline is swept upstairs by the court ladies and he is deposited into his chambers by the raucous noble lads with whom he keeps company these days. They think him inebriated. He is not.

They think him tired.

He is not that either.

He is more alive now than he has been at any other time during the past five years. He can feel her presence in his blood, setting him alight, reminding him of the past that he has spent the intervening years trying to lock away in his heart.

He wants, oh Maker, how he wants.

It is probably his templar days that are responsible for the path his thoughts turn down next. The Chantry is nothing if not excellent at funnelling the sexual frustrations of its templars into productive hours of sword practice. 

All he feels is the sudden itch to hold a blade in his hand, the need to vent his frustrations on a straw dummy or five, to exhaust his body in the hopes of distracting himself from three simple facts.

One, she is here and within arm’s reach.

Two, he would be marrying another come daybreak.

Three, no matter how much he might try to deny it, no matter how much easier it would make everything if he could only convince himself it wasn’t true, he had seen it in her eyes.

She still loved him.

He still loved her.

Void.

He hauls himself up off the bed, raking a hand through his growing hair. An hour or two in the practice ring will help, he tells himself. Not in any practical sense, of course, but it might somewhat ease the frustration of what him becoming king has reduced them to.

He sends a baleful glance towards the door. He knows he’s supposed to inform the guard outside about his intentions. Maker forbid he should ever be permitted to go anywhere alone. But… alone is what he needs right now.

Damn it, he is still a person, isn’t he? He’s allowed to feel.

He crosses over to the window, examining the distance between the ledge and the ground. It doesn’t look so very far and the ivy that creeps up to just a yard or so below the ledge looks study enough. If he could launch himself out of the window and grab the ivy to halt his fall…

It works.

Within the next moment he is outside. His long stride pulls him easily and swiftly across the courtyard. It’s reassuring in a way, moving with clear purpose through the warm evening air while his thoughts and emotions storm around him like a thundercloud.

Shortly, he reaches the weapons rack that sits at the edge of the practice ring and wrenches a blade loose with such force that the other swords rattle in their brackets. He doesn’t notice, so deep in the thundercloud of his thoughts that he has virtually no awareness of his surroundings.

Which is why, as he steps into the ring, he is surprised to see another figure already at practice.

She turns to face him, though whether alerted either by the sound of his footsteps or the rattle of the swords he is not sure.

“Oh, for the Maker’s Sake!” she spits as she catches sight of him. “Really? Are you really here?”

Her annoyance is probably justified, he reasons. He wouldn’t want to be interrupted either, but apparently that doesn’t mean he’s going to be reasonable about it.

“In case it failed to escape your attention,” he finds himself growling out in response, “this is, in fact, my courtyard.” 

Her eyes narrow at him and her beautiful, soft, rose-coloured lips twist into a horrific snarl. “Apologies, your majesty. I assumed that now you have the crown you no longer require sword practice. Or indeed anything from your former life.”

The implication of her words hits him square in the gut. She blames him for their circumstances, and the injustice of that enrages him further. He never wanted this, never asked for it. She had declared him king, she placed the crown squarely upon his head. If anything, this is all her fault.

“You were the one that did this to us!” he roars, crossing the practice ring to grip her forearm and yank her closer to him. “You were the one that declared me king before the Landsmeet! You think I want this? You think I wanted any of this? We are here because of you!” He yells his words into her face, unable to either check or rein in his anger.

She only gazes at him. She looks... lost, lonely, hopeless.

Eventually she whispers, her voice holding that same hopelessness, that same loneliness, “I know.”

His anger evaporates as quickly as it came, only to be replaced by a cavernous, overwhelming sense of despair, and he wishes he could summon the anger back.

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, releasing her arm and stepping back. “I... I just... I’m sorry.”

She nods, biting her lip and looking down at the sword in her hand as if surprised to see it there.

“I should leave you to it,” she says quietly, not meeting his eyes, and before he can summon a proper response, she is moving past him.

“Wait!” The word is out of his mouth before he even realises that he has spoken. There is so much he wants to say and no words with which to say it. She turns back to face him. Her expression is carefully neutral but he knows her well enough to see the turmoil beneath. He gazes at her, trying to find the words, trying to find any words; but now that she is here, before him, close enough to touch and yet so far away, he begins to realise just how keenly he has felt her absence.

“I miss you.”

The phrase doesn’t nearly do justice to the aching feeling of loss that has pervaded everything since she left, but he’s not sure any words could.

Her lips quirk in what might once have been a full smile. “I miss you too.”

He responds by huffing out the breath he didn’t realise he’d been holding. They should be together; every part of his heart and soul cries out for it. Yet, he had not been wrong that day, the kingdom needs an heir. And that means… they can’t.

He sighs. “This is stupid.”

She chuckles. “Yeah.”

He feels a smile tug at the corner of his mouth in response to hers, and, for a moment, there is just peaceful silence. For the first time in five years he feels like Alistair again, and he takes a moment to enjoy that sensation. With his back to the palace and the walls hidden by the trees he can almost, almost, believe they are back in Redcliff, waiting for Arl Eamon to recover.

“Spar with me,” he says, and there is no question in his voice, only a kind command.

She cocks her head at him, green eyes sparkling wickedly and his heart lurches in response.

“Want to make sure you haven’t grown soft on your throne?” she teases.

He grins. “More like I want to make sure my Warden Commander is up to the task,” he teases right back.

“You’re on.” She grins back at him and hefts her sword more securely into her grasp.

Turning, he has to resist skipping into the centre of the ring. He knows he’s grinning like an idiot, but he can’t seem to summon the will to tamp it down. Besides, she’s grinning as well and they are the only two idiots around. No-one else has to know.

She doesn’t give him time to take up position centre ring, just attacks; she always was devilishly fast. He is immediately forced into the defensive position, falling back and parrying her blows. The effort makes him move faster than his normal comfort zone. He lets her settle into a rhythm, then pushes back using his superior strength to force her to either give ground or match him. She chooses to match him putting more force into her blows but the effort is costing her and any moment now…

There.

He swipes at her exposed left side and, with all the agility of an acrobat, she twists away, rolling under his blade and rising to her feet behind him. He spins, holding his blade across his body in a defensive position and the dance begins again.

Back and forth across the ring, they exchange blows; his strength and bulk matching her speed and agility. There is something exhilarating in being matched blow for blow, in needing to use all his strength and intelligence just to maintain equal ground. The song of their blades meeting echoes in his ears and even now he knows he’s still grinning like an idiot.

Clack.

Their blades meet with a final clatter crossed across their bodies. His blade rests above hers and he’s managed to slightly off-foot her in that last parry. He has the advantage. He pushes closer to her, once again using his superior strength and he feels the tremble in her arm as she attempts to keep him at bay.

He holds firm exerting more force on their crossed blades; close enough to her now that he can see his reflection in her eyes, feel her breath on his cheeks.

Close enough to kiss…

Before he can think too much, that’s exactly what he’s doing; pressing his lips to hers in the gap between their blades. Their swords clatter to the floor, forgotten in the midst of the roaring that strikes up in his ears, and he uses his free arm to pull her flush against him. The feel of her, the small sound she makes in the back of her throat, only intensifies the roaring until he is virtually mindless with desire, and the only thing that makes any sense to him anymore is more.

More.

He needs more.

She’s kissing him back with equal vigour, clinging to him, pressing her lush body into his own as if she means to devour him whole.

He is perfectly fine with that arrangement.

He slides his hand down her side, revelling in the feminine curve of her hip, while his tongue plunders the sweet cavern of her mouth. Reaching down, he grips her leg and pulls it up round his hip. She instinctively brings her other leg up, and then he is the only thing supporting her, and he is surrounded by her body, her heat, her taste. 

More.

He still needs more.

She tears her lips from his, gasping her pleasure out into the night air. He moves his lips to the column of her throat, taking special care to scrape his teeth over her pulse point, and smiling against her skin as she jolts against him.

“Alistair,” she gasps.

More, he thinks, his lips continuing to kiss her throat, tongue darting out to taste delicious damp skin.

“Alistair,” she groans.

More, his mind demands as he slips a hand under her linen shirt, stroking the skin in time with his ministrations at her neck. 

“Alistair!” she snaps, running her fingers through his hair and tugging, just enough to hurt. He is forced to raise his head and meet the liquid pools of heat and desire that are her eyes.

“Not here,” she growls.

“Where?” he grounds out, entirely unsurprised to hear that his voice is low and husky and slightly unsteady. She wriggles against him in an attempt to escape from his arms. It only makes him grip her hips tighter, completely unwilling to release her until she has committed to this, to them.

As if the look in her eyes weren’t enough.

“My room,” she mutters against his lips, before kissing him with all the love and passion that knows her to be capable of.

“I gave you a room?” He grins against her lips as he returns her kiss and allows her to stand on her own two feet.

“You did.” Her fingers slip beneath his shirt, her caress sending tremors throughout his body.

“How forward thinking of me.” He grasps her wrists to stop the movement of her hands across his skin before he loses all rationality. 

He decides that he will not allow himself to think as he pulls her towards the side door. Thinking at this point is a bad, bad plan. Dragging Elissa to the nearest bed is a good, good plan.

He deserves this, he figures. He has spent the past five years burying his own desires, his own needs, in order to do what’s right. He has hidden his true opinions, his true personality for the sake of the kingdom, for the sake of the Landsmeet.

By his own calculation it’s time for him to have something he wants.

Right now, he wants her, needs her.

Their journey though the castle is fraught with kisses, soft groans, stifled laughter and quickly ducking out of the sight of approaching guards. As he closes the door to her chambers and turns to take her in his arms once more, he is struck by how very right she feels against him, how right it feels to be with her, even as he knows it’s also so very wrong.

Their coming together is both exactly as he remembers and completely new all at the same time. His instincts return with an almost alarming clarity, and he finds he remembers exactly where to touch her, where to taste her. She had never been what you might call ‘restrained’ in her passion; she had always responded to him eagerly. But this time there is an additional desperation in her movements, a fierceness in the way she clings to him, that the warrior in him can do nothing but match in intensity.

Within the stone walls of the castle, she has the freedom to give full voice to her passion. A freedom that she embraces; the sounds that escape her driving him dangerously close to the edge. He does everything he can to draw the experience out, wanting to taste every inch of her, remember every movement, every sound, before he succumbs to the inevitable and the world dissolves into hot, sweet, aching release.

Afterwards, she curls up beside him; her head resting above his heart. He curls his arm around her, holding her closely, protectively, and she drapes the sheets over them both. He falls asleep to the sound of her breathing; to the feel of her naked body pressed against his own; to a sense of peaceful tranquillity.

It is the best night’s sleep he’s had since becoming king. 

He wakes to her shifting against him, rising from their bed. A quick glance out of the window tells him that dawn has not yet broken, but also that it will not be long in coming.

“What is it?” The question is rather redundant. He knows what the issue is. The issue is all the thoughts he hadn’t allowed himself to think the previous night.

“I have to go,” she replies softly, after a while. “I thought I could stay, could see. I figured witnessing it would help but…not now.”

She stands, pulling on her breeches and his heart laments the loss of her creamy skin. Her clothing almost seems a barrier between them and he finds he is suddenly terrified by what she might say.

“And I mustn’t come back.”

It is exactly what he’d thought she’d say, and exactly why he’d been terrified of her speaking. He understands, he does. Last night they were both free agents. After today, he will no longer be so. That simple fact has the power to destroy them both, but he finds that he cannot stand the thought of her not being in his life. Not anymore.

“We can still see each other sometimes, though, can’t we?” He can hear it in his voice, begging, and suddenly it’s all he can do to stop himself from falling to his knees before her; to pour his heart out in a desperate attempt to make her stay. “We could try being friends…”

“No, we can’t,” she says firmly, turning her back to him and pulling her shirt over her head. 

“Why not?” he questions while yanking on his own breeches.

“Because!” she snaps, whirling around to face him. “Because every time we see each other we will end up in a bed somewhere, you know we will!” She rakes an exasperated hand through her hair, sending the tresses into disarray. All he can think of is his need to reach out and smooth it down. “Can you not see what that will do to us? Come daybreak, you will be...”

A sob forces its way out between her lips and he realises with horror that she cannot say the word. He cannot even think it. 

“And we... we can’t!” she continues, even as the tears start to pour down her face. “Forever after this day you will always feel guilty for being with me, and I will hate you for your guilt, and what we have will become twisted and grotesque, and I don’t want that Alistair, I... I don’t … want that...” She wipes a careless hand across her cheek, capturing only a few of the tears. “It’s why I would not stay and be your mistress either.” She raises her eyes to his. “Do you not see?”

He does, he really really does. She is right, as she so often is. 

He will never see her again.

The thought settles like ice in his heart, overwhelming everything else. He tries to come to terms with the idea but it is impossible. She is his heart. Her absence is the reason why he has only felt half-alive for the last five years. Without her, he will never feel alive again.

For a moment he sees his future as if he had already lived it. A parade of politics and parties with not a single light on the horizon until his time is done and he submits to…

No, he will see her again, just once more.

He wets his lips, swallows. He cannot be entirely sure that his voice will work but decides to risk it anyway.

“You’re right.” He stands before her and gazes into the endless green that shapes his entire reason for being. “You’re absolutely right, we shouldn’t see each other.”

Her eyes squeeze shut even as more tears pour out from behind the closed lids. He closes the distance between them in three strides and pulls her into his embrace. The contact seems to undo her and she lets loose, openly sobbing into his chest. He feels tears prick his own eyes but refuses to allow them to fall. He strokes her hair as her sobs fade and when all is quiet, he tilts her chin up meeting her eyes with his own.

“But we will, just once more.” He watches the confusion cross her features, delighting in it only because he is here to witness it. “I promised you once that we would face the calling together.” He reaches out, cupping her face in both his hands. “I intend to keep that promise.” 

Understanding blooms in her eyes and she manages a small watery smile.

“Yes,” she breathes against him. “All right, then.”

He kisses her then, softly, slowly, savouring the taste and feel of her; trying desperately to commit every sensation to memory in the hopes of somehow sustaining his sanity for the next long and lonely years.

He kisses her until he can no longer breathe; until the air has almost entirely left his lungs. Even then it’s not enough. He presses his forehead against hers, their combined breathing heavy.

“The Spoiled Princess,” he gasps, his voice barely audible. “That’s where we’ll meet when…”

She doesn’t reply, only nods but he needs to hear it, needs this last meeting to become a tangible thing if he has any hope of surviving the intervening years.

“You will be there won’t you?” he presses, desperately searching her eyes for the confirmation he needs.

“I promise you, I will,” she whispers.

He pulls her to him, wrapping his arms around her, holding her close and wishing desperately that he didn’t have to let go. She pushes him back eventually, twisting out of his arms.

“I need to go.”

He nods, understanding even as his heart shatters into a million pieces.

She doesn’t look at him as she gathers her belongings and he understands that too. He doesn’t look at her either as he turns searching for the remainder of his clothing.

If he looks at her, he might never be able to let her go.

He hears the door click shut behind her and has to force himself to take a deep, shaking breath. Force himself to blink back the tears in his eyes before he is able to turn around and see the proof that she is really gone. When he does the pervading, aching sense of loss and heartbreak returns with full force and he wonders if he will ever feel whole again.

Fully clothed, he moves over to the window in the hopes that fresh air might calm him. He grips the balcony’s rail, pulling deep healing breaths through his nose.

Then he sees her crossing the courtyard below.

And cannot resist calling her name out once more.

She turns towards him at the sound, beautiful even in her sorrow, the breeze lifting the hair from her face, allowing him to see, with heart-breaking clarity, the moisture in her eyes. She graces him with one last smile.

“Fare-

*

-well” he murmurs to the city, before turning his back on her for the last time.

He has waited, waited literally an entire lifetime for this day, and even though this day heralds the end of his life, he finds he’s glad it’s finally here.

He keeps to the main roads for now, the cool autumn weather granting him the perfect excuse to keep the hood of his cloak up and drawn partially over his face.

Sometime in the late afternoon, a contingent of Kingsguard pelt down the road. He pulls his hood further across his face and steps closer to the group of travellers in front of him. He hovers just close enough to make it seem like he’s travelling with them but not so close that the group themselves notice his presence.

He grins as the guards ride right past him without a second glance.

He follows the main road until the number of other travellers begins to dwindle, then turns, cutting across the Bannorn in the direction of the lake. He decides against camping for the night in case he should be discovered by some passing farmer and instead relies upon the stamina that only a warden can possess to keep him going throughout the night.

When he arrives at the inn the absence of any tingling in his blood tells him that she has not yet arrived. So, he orders a tankard of ale and room and settles in a dark corner to wait.

She will come, he tells himself.

After all, she made promises too.


	3. Chapter Three

He waits three days for her to arrive. Three agonising days of wondering whether she remembered their promise; wondering whether she’d even begun to feel the calling.

Sitting in the darkest corner of The Spoiled Princess, near the kitchens, both because it’s warmer, and the most convenient escape route, he wonders if the Kingsguard are still out looking for him. Whether Madeline had successfully claimed the throne for their son. If they’ll manage to secure that trade agreement with the Antivans… Perhaps he should have paid the Crows off more substantially before he left, or contacted Zevran. He was always happy to dispose of a few Crows for a fee from the crown. No discount ever offered for old friends, of course. He should have…

No, he shouldn’t be thinking about his old life.

He’s only doing it to distract himself from the fact that, in a few days, he will have to leave. A few days after that, and he will reach Orzammar too weak to hold a sword. If he’s going out, if he has to go out, he will go out fighting.

Even if he has to do it alone.

The door to the tavern opens, a cold breeze blowing across the room, and just like it has every time that door had opened in the last three days, hope flutters in his heart.

This time, that hope is not only crushed but replaced by a jolt of fear, as a knight of the Kingsguard enters the tavern.

Sinking back into his chair, into the shadows, he turns his face away. He has never been particularly good at being stealthy, and he has no idea what he’ll do if the guard attempts to drag him back to the palace.

He tries to keep his breathing even, tries to remember that no one expects the king to be in lounging in The Spoiled Princess.

When he chances a glance at the knight a few seconds later, he’s talking with the barkeep in hushed tones. He can’t hear what they’re saying, not without moving closer, but as long as the knight has his back to him, he is at least free to keep watching.

In fact, he’s so carefully watching the knight’s movements that he doesn’t notice the door open a second time. Doesn’t notice who enters the tavern. Not until the knight addresses her.

“Warden Commander, how fortunate.”

His heart stops. The world… everything stops, because she’s here. He can’t quite believe it. He’d been looking forward to this day for so long, decades of hoping, praying, for this moment that now that it’s here, somehow it doesn’t quite seem real.

He couldn’t stop looking at her even if he wanted to. She’s exactly the same as he remembers. Her flaming red hair is just as bright, her green eyes just as sparkling, her smile just as teasing. All of a sudden, he’s nineteen again, watching, marvelling, as she effortlessly leads their little group through the blight.

“Lost the king, you say?” she says to his guard, and the expression on her face is exactly the same as it had been when she used to tease him by their camp’s fireside. “That’s awfully careless of you.”

The poor man splutters and coughs, stumbling over his words in a way that’s just a little too familiar. “Yes, well, if you happen see his majesty…”

“I shall send him back to the palace immediately.”

It is probable that only he himself recognises her tone as utterly sarcastic.

He keeps watching, unable to do anything but stare at her as she swipes her tankard off the bar, her quick assessing gaze drifting over the other patrons as she sips.

He stops breathing the moment their eyes meet.

“That’s a very fine cloak for such an ordinary tavern,” she teases, throwing herself into the opposite chair with an easy grace that hasn’t changed since the year of the blight.

“Is it?” He is completely unable to stop grinning. “I’m afraid it was the shabbiest I could find in the palace.”

She barks a laugh, but at the mention of his former life something changes in the air between them. Gone is the nineteen-year-old boy, the easy manner with which she teased him, and in its place rises an awkwardness born of the intervening years and the sorrow of their last parting.

He stuffs his hand in his pockets, unable to meet those green eyes, unsure of what to say, what to do. His fingers brush against something soft and delicate, buried deep in the recesses of his under tunic.

“I brought you something.” He pulls the rose he’d plucked out of his pocket. “I thought you might like it… Well, I mean, I hoped you might like it…”

He holds it out to her, hoping it would help, hoping she’ll take it. Of course, before she even has a chance to reach for it, the infernal thing slips between his fumbling fingers.

“Bugger,” he swears immediately, dropping from his seat to scoop up the precious flower and instead succeeding only in banging his head on the large oaken table. Then, in the face of her raucous laughter, “Ow! That hurt.”

“I’m glad to see you haven’t changed,” she says as soon as he’s re-taken his seat and she’s stopped laughing, laying a gentle hand on his cheek.

And just like that it’s easy again, easy to tease, easy to drink, incredibly easy to be with her….

Providing they stay away from the topic of the intervening years.

Later, when they stumble up to his room, half drunk, deliriously happy and freer than they’ve been in years, it feels only natural that they should share the singular bed.

It feels just as natural the next morning. And the next and the next, until they are falling into familiar patterns of making camp, hunting their dinner, trekking through the woods… and making love under the stars. It’s enough to make him wish that this moment, this quest, could last for an eternity.

It’s almost funny in a way, or at least it would be, if it weren’t so pathetic. He’d spent half his life since they parted wishing they were still fighting the blight and the other half wishing for this day, this journey.

The one that ends in his death.

And hers.

He’s never really considered that part of it before. He’s been so busy looking forward to seeing her again, to being with her again, that somehow it hadn’t occurred to him that this was the last adventure they would ever have.

The old proverb claims that the journey matters more than the destination, but all too soon they’re standing before the gates of Orzammar. Those great, grand gates that are just as intimidating as he remembers, and something heavy and black and horrible settles in his stomach at the sight of them.

Besides him, she takes a breath. One calming centring breath. It’s all she needs to gather the courage necessary to walk up those few steps and knock on the gilded door.

He needs considerably longer to gather his.

Perhaps the next thirty years?

But he follows her, as he always had, wondering what the hell she’d been through in the past few years that caused her courage so be so easily summoned.

The solemn nods and knowing expressions that greet them as they proceed through the city do nothing to ease the heavy black horrible feeling in his stomach. Worse, now it is accompanied by that sickening, prickling, swooping feeling from the hundreds of thousands of darkspawn he can sense beneath them.

Maker, he’d forgotten just how it felt to sense the darkspawn. That twisting writhing feeling, like they were crawling around inside you. Had it always been so bad? Or has he just forgotten?

A glance to his side proves that even Elissa has turned pale; her face drawn, older. But she still stands straight and proud before the king, explaining their intent and asking his permission to enter the deep roads.

He couldn’t be prouder of her, even as her hand starts to shake.

There’s a feast before they leave, although it might be more apt to call it their funeral. He’s sure it’s supposed to be joyous or comforting, but it is neither. He doesn’t even taste the food, despite the fact that a dwarven roast is no small fare, and the music seems flat, lifeless, as if a part of him has already died.

That night is the only night they don’t make love. He wants to, if only because he knows they should take advantage of every last moment. But… it doesn’t feel right, he doesn’t want to love her because he feels he should, but because he wants to, because she wants to and somehow it feels wrong to even suggest it. Instead, she just curls up in his arms, small and fragile, and he can do nothing but wrap himself around her, protecting her as much as he can.

But there’s no protecting her against the morning. Against the sweet almost tempting song that rises to greet them with every step into the deep roads. It’s like nothing he’s ever heard before: beautiful and sad, sweet, tempting and so very very at odds with the squirming dread that heralds the presence of the darkspawn.

They halt just before a gaping open tunnel. The darkspawn are down there. Just a few paces away. Swarms of them. They will kill as many of them as they can, of course. It is, after all, the last and most final Warden’s duty.

But he finds he can’t go into this final fight without saying something; can’t descend into that darkened pit, knowing that neither of them will ever walk out of it, without in some small way acknowledging the past they’ve so carefully avoided these last few weeks.

He stops her as she takes a step towards the darkness, gripping her elbow and pulling her into his arms.

“I should have been yours.” He presses his forehead into hers; content, for the moment, just to be close to her.

“I know.” She strokes his cheek with gentle fingers. “Perhaps in our next life?”

He grins. It’s an old obscure belief, from one small verse in the Chant, but he finds, right now, that he rather likes that idea. Another life. With her this time. 

Then all he can feel is the darkspawn swarming up the tunnel, that undercurrent of disgust coupled with the sweetness of that strange song.

This is it.

Hours later, everything hurts and the darkspawn still coming, endless waves of them. Their snarls fill the cavern along with the stench of their blackened blood. He has no idea how long he and Elissa have been fighting or how long they can continue to do so.

They’re already dead. They just don’t know it yet.

They’re already dead.

And that means…

“Elissa!” he yells above the cacophony of battle, kicking the hurlock he’d just beheaded away from him. “We’re dead!”

She looks at him with an expression akin to as if he had grown an extra head. In hindsight, it was not perhaps the most explanative of statements. She glances around at the swarm of darkspawn, her eyes bright and glittering despite their situation.

“You think?” she shouts back, her lips curling into an unmistakable smirk.

Maker, he loves her. How had he ever forgotten just how much?

“No, I mean-“ he ducks under the incoming blade that almost beheaded him, determined to survive long enough to say the words. “I mean that-“ he tries again, but is abruptly cut off by the need to throw all his weight and considerable strength behind his shield in order to block the incoming blows.

He fights his way over to her, determination and hope giving him the extra strength and stamina he needs to make it those few steps across the cavern.

“Marry me?” he gasps, the moment he’s beside her and they’ve managed to carve enough of a space around them that he can spare the precious seconds necessary to look into her eyes.

She understands immediately, because of course she does. He can see it in the sparkling green that he’s been far too long without. They’re dead. Which means he’s no longer married to Madeline. Which means he can marry her.

Even if there’s isn’t a revered mother, or a gown, or a cheering crowd. Even if it’s just them saying the words. They’ll know and the Maker will know.

And it will be enough.

“Alistair Theirin,” she begins, grinning from ear to ear while twisting half away from him in order to spear the nearest hurlock; once, twice and it’s incapacitated.

Maker, she’s fast, and deadly, and beautiful.

“Do you take me-” She ducks under his shield as a genlock lunges at them. He pushes against the blow as she swipes its legs out. “To be your wife, in sickness and in health –“ She spins again, almost dancing around him dealing out slices and blows that are almost too quick to follow. “With health being the less likely.” She grunts the last word as she throws her shoulder into the hurlock she’s wounded, tossing him over her back and into his own blade.

“I do.” He wrenches Duncan’s sword free with a grunt and sweeps it across the hurlock’s throat.

The grin that she shoots him over her shoulder, which is all sparkle and joy despite the fact that her face is covered in dirt and sweat and blood, is another thing to add to his list of the most beautiful things in the world.

“Elissa Cousland,” he begins, grabbing her forearm in order to spin her away from the shriek approaching her unguarded left flank. “Do you take me to be your-“

A roar, one they’ve heard oh, too many times to count, and that he remembers only because it has haunted his dreams every day since the blight, shakes the foundations of the cavern.

They stop.

Even the darkspawn stop as the thundering steps pound up the corridor and the Ogre bursts into the chamber. 

“I do.”

Elissa grins at him as they once again stand side by side, facing down an ogre.

For one brief moment, he sees not the darkness of the deep roads but the pillared room at the top of the Tower of Ishal, and the cold signal fire that has to be lit.

But then the ogre charges and they have just enough time to share a smile and a nod before he’s racing to meet it.

Their movements are practiced, synchronised. He strikes, three long cuts into its belly; not enough to kill it, but enough to distract it for a moment while he slides his shield onto his back and drops to his knees. A fraction of a second later, he feels the impact of Elissa’s boot as she lands directly in the centre of his shield. He stands as she leaps, launching her at the creature’s throat, and strikes at its knees as he rises.

She plunges her blade into the vulnerable flesh between the ogre’s neck and shoulder, striking deep. Her other, smaller blade draws across its throat, and by the time she wrenches both blades free, it’s dead.

Once upon a time, they’d whooped and cheered after completing a move like that, but today there isn’t time. Behind the ogre he can already see a never-ending stream of yet more darkspawn.

So instead he gives himself only the barest moment to breathe, conscious that there is one last thing they have to do to make this marriage official. Ignoring the instinct to turn and face the incoming tide of darkspawn, he spins her into his arms.

Bright green eyes, beautiful dark red hair, and a smile that he would never forget. He flicks his eyes over her face, trying to remember every detail before he presses her lips to his own.

She throws herself into him, pulling him closer as she yields to him completely, their kiss as wild and as passionate as the ones they’d shared in their youth.

He feels the blade that pierces his stomach, the one that must have gone right through the both of them.

But he does not stop kissing her.

He feels the hot sticky sensation of his own blood, and hers, pouring from the wound.

But he does not stop kissing her.

He feels the other blades, hundreds of them, striking his back, his shoulders, his knees.

But he does not stop kissing her.

His legs give way beneath him and it’s getting hard to keep track of his own thoughts.

But he does not stop kissing her.

He breathes his last breath against her mouth, still refusing to remove his lips from hers.

His final thought is gratitude, gratitude that they had been granted the time to make one last promise to each other.

The promise of forever.


End file.
